The present invention relates to managing accounts at banks, retail establishments and other commercial and non-commercial institutions, and more particularly to a system and method for managing customer addresses in connection with such accounts.
Systems for managing credit card and other financial accounts are in widespread use. These systems have become sophisticated and complex, particularly as consumers become more comfortable with on-line transactions and increase their use of credit cards. Customers now use credit cards, debit cards and similar devices to make purchases, obtain cash advances, check account balances and move cash between accounts. Transactions are conducted at point-of-sale terminals in retail stores, at automated teller machines, and over the Internet using personal computers. Many consumers have established multiple accounts, and in some cases family members each have credit cards and together may be using one or more of those accounts.
One complexity that has arisen in managing accounts (such as those for credit cards) is maintaining the appropriate addresses to which various communications to the account holder are sent. Financial institutions, for example, communicate with account holders for a number of reasons, such as sending monthly statements, mailing new account cards (when existing cards have expired), providing notice of changed conditions of use (as may be required for legal or regulatory purposes), and sending promotional literature (advertising for other products and services offered by the financial institution). If there are multiple cardholders, there may be multiple addresses to which various forms of communications are to be sent. In some cases, a customer may have one address during much of the year, and a different address during a part of the year, for example during winter months (sometimes referred to as a “snowbird” address). While existing account management systems have provided alternate addresses (for example a primary address and a different secondary address, or a correspondence address and a different billing address), such existing systems have not adequately managed the increasing frequency of multiple and changing addresses that are often associated with a single account.